


sempiternal

by notsafeforowls



Series: Discord Prompts/From the Swamp [5]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:14:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27183656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notsafeforowls/pseuds/notsafeforowls
Summary: There’s a lot of red when Nate wakes up.
Relationships: Nate Heywood/Zari Tomaz
Series: Discord Prompts/From the Swamp [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1982155
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	sempiternal

There’s a lot of red when Nate wakes up. It’s not quite like it was before – he doesn’t remember a lot but he distinctly remembers a lot of red light and then—

Then there’s nothing. Until now. Nate blinks and slowly sits up. It looks a lot like the Waverider’s bridge. Other than all the red of course. That’s different.

“I wasn’t sure that would work. I didn’t really plan for what to do if it did.”

Nate freezes. All of the pieces fall into place in a way that make his heart leap in his chest. It can’t be. There’s no way. He has to be confusing them. She can’t be here. Or he can’t be here. But when he turns around, Zari’s standing there in the middle of the bridge. Not Zari Tarazi. Zari Tomaz. _His_ Zari. She looks the exact same as when he saw her that day in the lab, even down to the tears. But her smile is more happy than sad this time.

He lifts his arms automatically when he moves towards him. He half-expects that she’s going to disappear when he hugs her, like she did at Heyworld, but Zari’s still there, holding on to him tightly.

“How did you manage this?” Nate asks. This isn’t possible. Zari and Behrad haven’t even been able to visit her for a long time. The only time Nate had ever managed to visit her, the totem had kicked him out after a few hours and he hadn’t been able to get back in.

“One of the only perks of being the only technically living person in here. I’m kind of part of the totem but I can also kind of use it while I’m here.” It’s half mumbled into Nate’s shoulder.

“No, I mean how did you get me in here? And how long do I have in here before the totem decides that I don’t belong here?”

Zari goes quiet and lets out a long slow sigh as she pulled away.

“Nate,” she says carefully, lifting her hands until they’re on either side of his face, like that first time they kissed in the medical bay on the ship, “how much do you remember about what happened before you woke up here?”

“I remember a lot of red light.” It must have been from the totem.

“You died.” It’s barely more of a confession. “I got the totem to pull you in right as it happened. Well, it was half totem and half me.” 

_Oh_ , that was what had happened. Nate swallows. He’d forgotten but now it comes back to him in a rush. The demon that was just a little too fast for John. Ava yelling his name. And the red—that had been blood. He’d been looking at the ceiling, trying to listen to Zari and Behrad telling him that Sara and Mick were on their way, and everything had been going all echoey. Then there had been the burst of red light. The red light that, Nate realises, he hadn’t actually seen. Or at least not the way he’d been watching and listening to everything else.

Zari’s still talking, uncertain and shaky now. Something about how the totem won’t send him back because there’s nowhere to send him back _to_.

Nate sits down quickly. The metal grating on the floor feels the exact same as the Waverider. The Waverider that Zari’s immaculately recreated inside the totem. It’s a lot to take in.

“I’m sorry.” Zari sits down beside him. “This was a bad idea. I just—I think I’ve spent the last four years thinking about that conversation we had before I found out that me being on the ship was killing Behrad. I can try and send you back, if you want me to.”

_Zari sitting on his bed, wearing one of his old t-shirts and flipping through Nate’s scrapbook of Heyworld articles. She laughs and says, “I could do this forever,” when Nate kisses her neck, trying to distract her from one of the embarrassing modelling photos._

_“We will.”_

“Forever,” Nate says. Of course. If the totem can’t send him back to his body or back to the real world – or at least one that isn’t around his best friend’s wrist – then they get that forever.

“Forever,” Zari echoes. “If you still want forever.”

Nate leans in to kiss her on the forehead. Maybe they’re not quite real in here – a woman who can’t exist in the regular timeline and a man who’s dead – but her skin is warm to the touch and he can see that forever stretching out in front of them. “It’s a lot better than ‘no regrets’.”


End file.
